1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to hydraulic fracturing and more specifically to fluid containment and monitoring.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is a technique used to release petroleum, natural gas (including shale gas, tight gas, and coal seam gas), or other substances trapped within the Earth's crust for extraction. A typical fracking site commonly includes a four to six acre level surface of land, known as the well pad. In addition to supporting fracking well and drill infrastructure itself, the well pad houses additional equipment and infrastructure such as above ground containment ponds, piping, vehicle access points, and the numerous tanker trucks used for supporting drilling operations.
Tanker trucks are utilized to carry liquid drilling waste, expunged from the well, away from the drilling site. Additionally, tanker trucks are utilized to carry liquid drilling materials, such as water, to the drilling site. Excess fluids are stored in containment ponds prior to introduction into the well or being carried away from the drilling site by tanker truck. A containment pond is an earthen or manmade structure for storing large quantities of excess liquid drilling material that goes into the drilled well or liquid drilling waste expunged from the well. Typical fracking sites include numerous containment ponds for the various fluids used for drilling or expunged from the well. In order to construct the containment ponds, the well pad must be level. Given the common practice of drilling in remote locations, the exercise of leveling a four plus acre well pad requires thousands of hours of time and millions of dollars in transportation of equipment and labor costs.
A typical fracking site may require as many as four million gallons or more of stored water for drilling fluid, the majority of which may be stored in nearby bodies of water. Oftentimes, however, nearby water sources are not available or environmental regulations prohibit their use, potable water trucks transport the drilling fluid to the well pad, often keeping the water in a plethora of above ground containment ponds. To put the scale of reliance on water transportation in perspective, ten 2,000 gallon tanker trucks would each need to make 200 trips to supply four million gallons of water to the well pad. This too results in spending thousands of hours of time and millions of dollars in transportation and driver labor costs.